Hi everyone,
I want to announce the availability of the new F123 (pronounced F 1 2 3).
Since this is a fairly technical list, some of you will remember F123
because we supported improvements to the Compiz Fusion eZoom plugin,
to Orca, and the WebGTK library, and more. But others will remember
that we try to make life easier for those who are just starting. This
message tries to offer information that is relevant for both beginners
and more advanced users.
F123 was based on Ubuntu in its previous versions, but now it is based
on ARCH and Manjaro, just like Sonar. We like Ubuntu and love Vinux,
but we wanted to have more recent versions of Orca available to our
non-technical users. We also prefer Gnome and Mate over Unity. We
cannot get into the merits of these decisions in a lengthy online
debate right now, this is just a quick explanation of the direction we
have taken. We respect and accept the decisions that others have made.
In practice, these are some of the things F123 offers in terms of
default settings, commands, and options:
* Help Mode
Imagine this is the first time you try F123. You do not know how to
control the volume of the speech synthesizer, how to get a list of
applications, or anything else. With F123, the first time you turn it
on, you will get a help page opened through Firefox with all the most
basic questions answered. You will also get tips read to you every
time you open one of the core applications such as Firefox,
Thunderbird, Calc, Writer, or the text editor which in our case is
Pluma (because of the recent changes to Gedit spoiling the easy F10
access to the menu bar. Next on the list, replacing Nautilus with Nemo
or PCmanFM, but lets not get distracted.
In any case, the help mode can be turned off by advanced users or
anybody who no longer needs the tips nor the Firefox Help file by
entering the following command on the Terminal:
deactivate-help
When lending the computer to someone who is just starting, just turn
help back on with, you guessed it:
activate-help
In the Spanish and Portuguese versions of F123 these commands have
their respective translations.
It is important to mention that help files in the English version will
be updated remotely in the following few days, as they are still
unfinished. This will not be an issue for subscribers of this list,
but it is worth mentioning. The Spanish help files are more complete,
but just as with the Portuguese version, they will receive continuous
remote updates as time and resources allow.
Finally, I should mention that F123 is currently using Gnome Shell,
but we cannot wait to launch a version that uses Mate.
* Keyboard Shortcuts
We have tried to follow the same commands as Vinux and Sonar whenever
possible to make everybody's life easier. Here are some examples:
CTRL+Escape = opens simplified menu.
Alt+F1 = opens full list of software by category
Orca left and right = voice rate
Orca up and down = voice pitch
CTRL+Super up and down = volume
CTRL+Alt E = opens Thunderbird
CTRL+Alt T = opens Terminal
CTRL+Alt O = restarts orca and speech-dispatcher, to be used when
speech stops suddenly.
CTRL+Alt P = opens pidgin
CTRL+Alt a = opens the help page just like help mode does.
CTRL+Alt f = opens firefox
CTRL+Alt G = Used to open Gedit, now opens Pluma, which has the
traditional Gedit interface.
CTRL+Alt H = opens home folder with Nautilus.
CTRL+Alt M = opens universal access settings which includes settings
for magnification.
Super+Alt M = activates magnifier just like in Sonar and others.
Super and minus or super and equals will increase or decrease
magnification.
ctrl super M = mutes and unmutes
Super + M = Will minimize all windows and place you on desktop.
* Terminal Commands
Just like with the commands mentioned earlier, the folowing are also
available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, depending on which
version of F123 you download. These are simple but very useful:
search-file
This command will do a search for filenames that is recursive and
ignores capitalization, and will list matches. Command would be
search-file string, where string can be a single word or when quotes
are used, a sentence.
search-file-with
This will search also recursively and without regard for
capitalization, but will do the search inside files and list the names
of those that contain the search string.
The default version of orca on F123 will be the latest stable taken
from Manjaro and ARCH. However, we provide an easy command to switch
from stable to Master and back. To switch to the master version of
Orca simply enter:
experimental-orca
To go back to the stable version enter:
stable-orca
Of course, the more complicated commands available in ARCH, Manjaro,
and Sonar remain available to you. The idea in F123 is to make things
easier for beginners, but anybody who wants to dive deeper can at any
time with commands like:
yaourt -S orca-git
Our intention here is to make it easier for beginners to use the
latest Orca, either because they desperately need one of its latest
improvements or simply to offer feedback to make it even better.
Then there are commands like virtualize which will grab the ISO you
specify and boot it in a virtual machine for you. Something nice for
both beginners and experienced users. This command is still not up,
but should be ready for you to use in the next couple of days.
We are of course open to including additional commands for the
terminal. Feel free to suggest your own. A full list will be available
on our F123 help page eventually.
* Regarding Keyboard Shortcuts and Other Screen Readers
We have seen online requests for Orca to use the same commands as are
used by other screen readers, and even before such conversations we
were already considering making the transition between screen readers
easier by having different Orca defaults. After extensive research we
came to the following conclusions:
1, There are many actions that exist under NVDA but not on Orca, and
many that exist on Orca but not on NVDA, so many commands simply have
no equivalent;
2, There are a few actions that already use the same key combination;
3, There are some that cannot be modified because of operating system
considerations on Linux and/or Windows, and finally;
4, There are about 9 or more that make more sense the way they were
implemented on Orca and maybe 4 that make more sense as they are on NVDA.
In conclusion, it made no sense to create two sets of manuals and two
training courses, plus the multiple translations of each, just because
of about 8 keyboard commands give or take a few.
Our own thinking on this matter is that we can all start a
conversation with the NVDA folk, and over time, between 8 and 14
commands could become equal between the two screen readers. This would
benefit everyone, it is just not as easy as simply remapping what is
already there today.
* Our Code
You can find the code we use to build F123 on GitHub at:
https://www.GitHub.com/F123
You can download the 64-bit English version of F123 here:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-en_us-64bits.iso
English 32-bit:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-en_us-32bits.iso
Spanish 64-bit:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-es_es-64bits.iso
Spanish 32-bit:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-es_es-32bits.iso
Portuguese 64-bit:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-pt_br-64bits.iso
Portuguese 32-bit:
http://public.F123.org/F123-Visual-pt_br-32bits.iso
We hope you will contribute to it. We also encourage everyone to help
with testing and/or coding for MaryTTS, eSpeak, Speech-Dispatcher,
Orca, Mate, LibreOffice, and good old Pidgin.
* F123 Services and Sustainability
F123 is a social enterprise dedicated to improving educational and
employment opportunities for the blind through superior and affordable
technologies, training, and technical support services. Should you or
any organization you know need assistance in making education or
employment more accessible to the blind, feel free to get in touch
with us. F123 is particularly relevant to NGOs and schools because we
are able to update software and help files remotely and automatically,
keeping maintenance costs and complexity very low for end-users.
* Our Thanks
We want to especially thank Kyle Brouhard and Joanmarie Diggs for the
outstanding work they do to make computers accessible to the blind
around the world and for making projects such as F123 possible. We
also want to thank everyone at ARCH, eSpeak, Gnome, LibreOffice,
Manjaro, MaryTTS, Mate, Mozilla, Sonar, and Vinux for the high quality
of their software. Finally, FOSS is only possible thanks to the
generosity and wise self-interest of millions of individuals around
the world, thank you all.
You may find a more complete thank you message and much more
information on our site at:
http://F123.org/en
* Our Lists
Any list discussing ARCH or Manjaro-based technology can also help
with F123 issues, but if you have F123-specific questions or
suggestions, please use our lists. To sign-up, just send an email to
the following addresses according to your preferred language:
List for English speakers:
f123english-subscribe yahoogroups com
Spanish speakers:
f123espanol-subscribe yahoogroups com
Portuguese speakers:
f123portugues-subscribe yahoogroups com
Best regards,
Fernando
_____________________________________
Fernando H. F. Botelho, Ashoka Fellow
President - F123
http://F123.org/en/
_______________________________________________
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